Only the Envelope: artistic interpretations of eye-tracking imagery

Vahri McKenzie

About this exposition

Only the Envelope (OTE) combines several research methodologies to investigate the ways we share personal information in the public sphere. This exposition presents video and video stills as primary artefacts in a discussion about a live artwork that dramatises the act of looking. In a live art installation, a ‘scientist’ invited visitors to be involved in an ‘experiment’ — namely, viewing a film while wearing a wireless eye-tracking device. This surveillance technology generated data about viewing behaviour. However, of greater interest was investigating how engaging with OTE as creative arts research led to unanticipated findings. Also interesting were the new audiovisual documents created through a re-enactment of the visitor’s experience, in which the eye-tracking device was redeployed as a head-mounted camera. In the artistic research context of OTE, the re-enacted videos led to new data being collected and analysed, leading to novel insights. These show that OTE’s ironic performance of science, employing the coercive power of complex technologies, maintained rather than undermined the compliant behaviour of participants. At the same time, the artist’s re-enactment of the visitor’s experience makes it possible to imagine, represent, and discuss such an act of subversion by illuminating the complexity of viewing behaviour when considered within the politics of the gaze and representation. This complexity is a reflection both of the emergent nature of a process-driven creative arts research enquiry, and of the work’s investigation of data retention.

type	research exposition
keywords	Data retention, surveillance, eye-tracking, the gaze, performance of science, re-enactment art
date	01/01/2018
published	11/04/2018
last modified	11/04/2018
status	published
affiliation	Edith Cowan University
license	All rights reserved
url	https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/332658/332659
doi	https://doi.org/10.22501/jar.332658
published in	Journal for Artistic Research
portal issue	15.

name	re-enactment3
copyright	OTE
license	All rights reserved
usages	video

name	scribble6
copyright	OTE
license	All rights reserved
usages	video

name	eyes-and-nose
copyright	OTE
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

name	making2
copyright	OTE
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

name	multigrid
copyright	OTE
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

name	dark reflection 3 - adjusted
copyright	OTE
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

name	dark reflection 1
copyright	OTE
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

name	heatmap-2
copyright	OTE
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

name	heatmap-1
copyright	OTE
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

name	svetlana-gazeplot
copyright	OTE
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

name	svetlana-heatmap
copyright	OTE
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

name	Svetlana
copyright	OTE
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

name	private-info
copyright	OTE
license	All rights reserved
usages	video

name	putting-on-gloves
copyright	OTE
license	All rights reserved
usages	video

name	analysis-process-2
copyright	OTE
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

name	analysis-process-1
copyright	OTE
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

name	heatmap-std
copyright	OTE
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

name	heatmap-non-std
copyright	OTE
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

name	gazeplot-non-std
copyright	OTE
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

name	heatmap-non-std2
copyright	OTE
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

name	scribble-end
copyright	OTE
license	All rights reserved
usages	video

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Only the Envelope: artistic interpretations of eye-tracking imagery (2018)

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